Creating Agricultural Markets That Protect the Environment
Farmers stand to gain entirely new markets from clean technology investments and biofuel adoption. New legislation could encourage carbon-emitting industries to buy less carbon intensive forms of energy grown on America's farms and ranches -- as well as an incentive to pay farmers to employ conservation practices that actually take carbon dioxide out of the air and store it in the soil.
Success has been seen in the proven, innovative approach used by the first Bush administration to address an environmental challenge through a market-based system. It rewards those who can help prevent the release of carbon into the atmosphere and those who can offer alternatives to fossil fuels. Specifically, farmers would gain from a system that:
- Create a market for agricultural products that contain less carbon. This
would include bio-fuels like ethanol and soydiesel. The new market
could help expand the use of these fuels beyond their current use as
fuel additives and into mainstream fuels.
- Create a market for how farmers grow in addition to what they grow. Through
conservation practices like no-till farming and the use of buffer
strips that fix carbon in the soil and keep it there, farmers can
offset carbon emissions in a more cost-efficient way than many
companies. As a result, farmers could provide the low-cost means of
meeting the greenhouse gas cap for private companies.
- Launch a new market for livestock producers. Livestock operations that use methane digesters to capture and reuse methane gas for
power generation should not only save money on their electric bills;
they should also profit by become suppliers of reduced carbon power to their local
utilities.
- Create a market for agricultural residue. Whether
it is selling wheat stalks to the local utility to burn alongside coal
to create low-carbon electric power or using corn stalks, wood chips
and alfalfa to create a new kind of ethanol, the demand for low-carbon
power will mean a second crop for farmers -- one for food,
another for energy -- and all from the same field.
- Spur capital investment and new jobs in rural areas.
Since so many new agriculture markets can come from this legislation,
it will also have the effect of helping to revive rural areas and bring
new technology and investment to rural America.
Thank you for taking the time to contact Senator Voinovich regarding the important issue of climate change. Countless legislative proposals have been introduced aimed at addressing greenhouse gas emissions and we need to show our elected officials that everyday Ohioans are paying attention.
Instructions:
Please fill out the form below and hit submit. A new page will open containing a letter asking Senator Voinovich to help craft legislation that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions through market based measures while rewarding innovation and creating job. After clicking "Finished", the letter will be sent on your behalf to Senator George Voinovich.
Thank you for your support, and for taking the time to assist Ohio's Tomorrow. If you have any questions, please contact us at Info@OhiosTomorrow.com.